5 ms·

Yes, but on the other hand Congress is so dysfunctional the choice is often regulatory/executive action or nothing. Even if you think the back and forth isn't

Yes, but on the other hand Congress is so dysfunctional the choice is often regulatory/executive action or nothing. Even if you think the back and forth isn't worthwhile, it's actually not politically avoidable because the other party will still play this game and you end up with a back and forth around an equilibrium further from what you might want.

lolinder 2y ago
It's not a popular opinion, but I'm pretty convinced that a few (5<=N<=10) years of administrative rulemaking being handicapped would fix Congress up pretty thoroughly. Both major parties benefit from the status quo of Congress being incapable and everything being ephemeral—each can promise their stakeholders that if you elect them this cycle they'll make sure that things go their way for this cycle. The ephemeral nature of the "win" is valuable because if they actually made a permanent fix the urgency to elect party Y would be gone. It's the subscription model applied to governance. My theory is that if you remove the administrative law game, things will quickly get broken enough that stakeholders will demand better, so both parties will get their act together and actually try to pass legislation again. It's entirely possible that I'm wrong (and cue the inevitable "it's not both sides" comments), but unless something unexpected happens to the court system it looks like we'll get to see in a few years.
- advisedwang 2y ago
  Maybe. Maybe it would lead to other games being played though. For example, now that the right has the supreme court, it has claimed a lot of extra power over regulatory agencies, elections and even congress. This effectively makes a right wing body the final arbiter; and end run over attempts to get the system working honestly. I believe reform needs to be a lot more hands on to get things back on track.
  - infogulch 2y ago
    Regulatory agencies have power which they were never granted, and the supreme court correctly found that if the executive branch is not granted power to do something (e.g. pass de-facto laws) they they cannot do that. This is a constitutional position, not a partisan position. If we want laws then we get congress to pass laws. This is how our system works. Congress' dysfunction is not an excuse to end-run around our system, it's a reason to fix congress.
    - bookaway 2y ago
      Well, if one party or another thinks the way the current pieces are lying on the board are advantageous to them, I would think it's a reason for them not to fix Congress.
      - infogulch 2y ago
        Both parties are disincentivized to actually fix the problem because when unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch make all the rules then nobody is actually held accountable. Then senators and congressmen from both isles get to chain themselves to the fence and viscously bark at the other side with partisan vitrol to drum up support while getting nothing done.
    - consteval 2y ago
      > This is a constitutional position, not a partisan position Every* previous court has disagreed. This is just your opinion. Chevron has been de-facto the way things are done since the early 1900s. You can disagree with Chevron, but you'd have to be both blind and deaf to think that's not a politically motivated position. At which point, I'm wondering how Hellen Keller got on hacker news. As a side-note: the constitution is, in fact, up to interpretation. The textualist's interpretation is just one. It is not more correct and, actually, is typically obviously obtuse. I mean, it's a position based on the action of playing dumb.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      The supreme court literally deferred such duties to regulatory agencies. Congress didn't intervene with bills. That's about as tacit power as you can get. >Congress' dysfunction is not an excuse to end-run around our system Sure it is. The whole point of the judicial system is to interpret laws and make rulings based on interpretations. If congress hates that, they need to stop slapfighting. Meanwhile, I believe executive orders have risen back to 40's/50's era orders (i.e. orders during World wars). Again, Judicial and Congressional can stop it but no one does half the time. >it's a reason to fix congress. I'm open to ideas.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    > ... back on track. Out of curiosity, is there a point in time where things were clearly "on track"?
    - SkyLemon 2y ago
      Based on my limited understanding of American politics, it depends on which side of the Mason–Dixon line you live on and when such a divided was relevant.
    - disposition2 2y ago
      IMO, late 2009 / early 2010. The Citizen's United decision by SCOTUS, with a bit of a bump again by SCOTUS in 2013 when they basically nullified majority of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Congress is unarguably dysfunctional but (I believe) SCOTUS had a pretty large part in helping them get to where they are today...and in the difficulties involved with getting things back on track.
    - advisedwang 2y ago
      No, good point! I probably should have said getting things the way most American hope government would work. Or perhaps the way I think government should work, if I'm really being honest.
- nl 2y ago
  > It's not a popular opinion, but I'm pretty convinced that a few (5<=N<=10) years of administrative rulemaking being handicapped would fix Congress up pretty thoroughly. One party doesn't believe that government should be making laws at all though.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    The major parties aren't the Democrats and the Libertarians. Republican voters have plenty of policy items that they would like to become law, and Republican presidential candidates are very fond of promising them to voters and blaming Democratic obstructionism when they don't happen or get rolled back by the new administration.
- paulmd 2y ago
  A conservative accelerationist who believes that wit will usher in a new era of progressive regulation and long-term social benefit? Now I really have seen everything.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    I'm pretty tough to put into a box! Many have tried and failed.
koolba 2y ago
> Yes, but on the other hand Congress is so dysfunctional the choice is often regulatory/executive action or nothing. Which means that the country, through their elected legislature, has not agreed on a policy. Not coming to a new decision doesn’t mean the executive branch gets carte blanche to make up the rules. Not coming to an agreement means the country is not at enough of an agreement. If it’s truly popular it should pass Congress. If it’s not, it won’t. And if it’s popular and it doesn’t pass, then there’s always elections to change Congress and try again. The slow pace is a feature, not a bug.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  Frankly, it doesn’t mean that at all. There are myriad issues where a clear majority of the country believes something should be legal or illegal but congress either takes no action or goes against that will. The issue is that these people are far more accountable to those with the money to run their campaigns than to the common peasant the campaign ad targets. Consequently, the will that tends to get realized in congress is slanted heavily towards the interests of money, and of course it is. Lack of noncompete legislation isn’t an example of slow pace, it’s an example of companies that have money slanting politics in their favor to maintain a bit of extra leverage over their workers.
  - parineum 2y ago
    Those issues are largely red herrings. Get into actual policy details and you'll see the consensus disappear. Marijuana legalization is a great example. It's been consensus that it shouldn't have been as illegal as it was for decades yet it's only been consensus to treat it mostly like alcohol in a handful of states. The consensus of "something should be done" can predate the consensus of "this should be done" by years or decades, especially nationally.
    - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
      You know what, this is actually a pretty good point. No politician wants to go out on a limb proposing a specific solution in case some of their demo doesn’t like that particular one.

lolinder 2y ago

It's not a popular opinion, but I'm pretty convinced that a few (5<=N<=10) years of administrative rulemaking being handicapped would fix Congress up pretty thoroughly. Both major parties benefit from the status quo of Congress being incapable and everything being ephemeral—each can promise their stakeholders that if you elect them this cycle they'll make sure that things go their way for this cycle. The ephemeral nature of the "win" is valuable because if they actually made a permanent fix the urgency to elect party Y would be gone. It's the subscription model applied to governance. My theory is that if you remove the administrative law game, things will quickly get broken enough that stakeholders will demand better, so both parties will get their act together and actually try to pass legislation again. It's entirely possible that I'm wrong (and cue the inevitable "it's not both sides" comments), but unless something unexpected happens to the court system it looks like we'll get to see in a few years.

advisedwang 2y ago
Maybe. Maybe it would lead to other games being played though. For example, now that the right has the supreme court, it has claimed a lot of extra power over regulatory agencies, elections and even congress. This effectively makes a right wing body the final arbiter; and end run over attempts to get the system working honestly. I believe reform needs to be a lot more hands on to get things back on track.
- infogulch 2y ago
  Regulatory agencies have power which they were never granted, and the supreme court correctly found that if the executive branch is not granted power to do something (e.g. pass de-facto laws) they they cannot do that. This is a constitutional position, not a partisan position. If we want laws then we get congress to pass laws. This is how our system works. Congress' dysfunction is not an excuse to end-run around our system, it's a reason to fix congress.
  - bookaway 2y ago
    Well, if one party or another thinks the way the current pieces are lying on the board are advantageous to them, I would think it's a reason for them not to fix Congress.
    - infogulch 2y ago
      Both parties are disincentivized to actually fix the problem because when unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch make all the rules then nobody is actually held accountable. Then senators and congressmen from both isles get to chain themselves to the fence and viscously bark at the other side with partisan vitrol to drum up support while getting nothing done.
  - consteval 2y ago
    > This is a constitutional position, not a partisan position Every* previous court has disagreed. This is just your opinion. Chevron has been de-facto the way things are done since the early 1900s. You can disagree with Chevron, but you'd have to be both blind and deaf to think that's not a politically motivated position. At which point, I'm wondering how Hellen Keller got on hacker news. As a side-note: the constitution is, in fact, up to interpretation. The textualist's interpretation is just one. It is not more correct and, actually, is typically obviously obtuse. I mean, it's a position based on the action of playing dumb.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    The supreme court literally deferred such duties to regulatory agencies. Congress didn't intervene with bills. That's about as tacit power as you can get. >Congress' dysfunction is not an excuse to end-run around our system Sure it is. The whole point of the judicial system is to interpret laws and make rulings based on interpretations. If congress hates that, they need to stop slapfighting. Meanwhile, I believe executive orders have risen back to 40's/50's era orders (i.e. orders during World wars). Again, Judicial and Congressional can stop it but no one does half the time. >it's a reason to fix congress. I'm open to ideas.
- justinclift 2y ago
  > ... back on track. Out of curiosity, is there a point in time where things were clearly "on track"?
  - SkyLemon 2y ago
    Based on my limited understanding of American politics, it depends on which side of the Mason–Dixon line you live on and when such a divided was relevant.
  - disposition2 2y ago
    IMO, late 2009 / early 2010. The Citizen's United decision by SCOTUS, with a bit of a bump again by SCOTUS in 2013 when they basically nullified majority of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Congress is unarguably dysfunctional but (I believe) SCOTUS had a pretty large part in helping them get to where they are today...and in the difficulties involved with getting things back on track.
  - advisedwang 2y ago
    No, good point! I probably should have said getting things the way most American hope government would work. Or perhaps the way I think government should work, if I'm really being honest.
nl 2y ago
> It's not a popular opinion, but I'm pretty convinced that a few (5<=N<=10) years of administrative rulemaking being handicapped would fix Congress up pretty thoroughly. One party doesn't believe that government should be making laws at all though.
- lolinder 2y ago
  The major parties aren't the Democrats and the Libertarians. Republican voters have plenty of policy items that they would like to become law, and Republican presidential candidates are very fond of promising them to voters and blaming Democratic obstructionism when they don't happen or get rolled back by the new administration.
paulmd 2y ago
A conservative accelerationist who believes that wit will usher in a new era of progressive regulation and long-term social benefit? Now I really have seen everything.
- lolinder 2y ago
  I'm pretty tough to put into a box! Many have tried and failed.

koolba 2y ago

> Yes, but on the other hand Congress is so dysfunctional the choice is often regulatory/executive action or nothing. Which means that the country, through their elected legislature, has not agreed on a policy. Not coming to a new decision doesn’t mean the executive branch gets carte blanche to make up the rules. Not coming to an agreement means the country is not at enough of an agreement. If it’s truly popular it should pass Congress. If it’s not, it won’t. And if it’s popular and it doesn’t pass, then there’s always elections to change Congress and try again. The slow pace is a feature, not a bug.

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
Frankly, it doesn’t mean that at all. There are myriad issues where a clear majority of the country believes something should be legal or illegal but congress either takes no action or goes against that will. The issue is that these people are far more accountable to those with the money to run their campaigns than to the common peasant the campaign ad targets. Consequently, the will that tends to get realized in congress is slanted heavily towards the interests of money, and of course it is. Lack of noncompete legislation isn’t an example of slow pace, it’s an example of companies that have money slanting politics in their favor to maintain a bit of extra leverage over their workers.
- parineum 2y ago
  Those issues are largely red herrings. Get into actual policy details and you'll see the consensus disappear. Marijuana legalization is a great example. It's been consensus that it shouldn't have been as illegal as it was for decades yet it's only been consensus to treat it mostly like alcohol in a handful of states. The consensus of "something should be done" can predate the consensus of "this should be done" by years or decades, especially nationally.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    You know what, this is actually a pretty good point. No politician wants to go out on a limb proposing a specific solution in case some of their demo doesn’t like that particular one.